Dates

• Existence: 1832 - 1903

Biographical Note

Archibald Atkinson, Jr. (1832-1903) served as a doctor in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He was a surgeon for the 10th Regiment, Virginia Cavalry, followed by appointments with the 31st Regiment, Virginia Infantry, and the Second Army Corps, Army of Nothern Virginia. His father Archibald Atkinson (1792-1872) was a lawyer and politician, representing Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1843-1849).

Additional biographical information is available on the archived version of the Special Collections and University Archives website.

The following is from The Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Maryland and District of Columbia, pgs. 603-604. Baltimore: National Biographical Publishing Co., 1879.

Atkinson, Archibald, Jr., M.D., Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore, was born February 23, 1832, near Smithfield, on the James River, Isle of Wight County, Virginia. His father was an eminent lawyer, and represented the Second Congressional District of Virginia in the United States Congress from 1844 to 1848. Dr. Atkinson received his education at the University of Virginia, and graduated inmedicine at the University of Pennsylvania in the spring of 1854. After receiving his diploma he went abroad and enjoyed the advantages of the clinics of the most famous hospitals of Paris for eighteen months, and a six months' residence in the Rotunda Lying-in Hospital of Dublin, Ireland. Returning to America in 1856 he located in Baltimore, where he practiced his profession until the outbreak of the late [American] civil war, when he returned to his native State and was appointed Assistant Surgeon in the Wise Legion [of the Confederacy] in West Virginia, and assigned to the charge of the Lewisburg Hospital.

In 1862 Dr. Atkinson was selected as the Surgeon of the Tenth Regiment, Virginia Cavalry, belonging to General J.E.B. Stuart's command, and in autumn of 1863 was assigned to the Thirty-first Virginia Regiment of Infantry. Subsequently he was appointed Brigade-Surgeon in General John Pegram's Brigade, Early's Division, Second Army Corps, of the Army of Northern Virginia. At the termination of the war he established himself in the practice of his profession in his native town of Smithfield, Virginia, continuing there until the spring of 1873, when he removed to Baltimore and located on North Charles Street. In the fall of 1875 Dr. Atkinson was elected to the chair of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Baltimore, a position he has filled with rare ability and eminent success as an imparter of medical knowledge.

His maternal ancestors were the Powells and Chiltons of Loudon County, Virginia, whose progenitors originally came from Scotland and Wales. His ancestors on the paternal side were English.He has a brother, Dr. Robert Chilton Atkinson, who is practicing medicine at St. Louis, Missouri. On November 2, 1858, Dr. Atkinson married Mary Elizabeth Thomas, of Smithfield, Virginia, daughter of Samuel Thomas, whose wife was Frances Harrison Woodley, daughter of Major Woodley, of Smithfield. The issue of the marriage is two children, Mary Chilton and Louis Woodley Atkinson, both of whom are living.

In religion Dr. Atkinson is inclined to the tenets of the Presbyterian Church, and his political sentiments are of the Jeffersonian State rights Democratic stamp. As a citizen, scholar, physician, or preceptor, none stand higher than he in the community where he is so steadily and successfully practicing his profession.

Sources:

The Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Maryland and District of Columbia, pgs. 603-604. Baltimore: National Biographical Publishing Co., 1879. (A digitized version is available online from the Internet Archive, and a copy is available from VT University Libaries via the online library catalog.)

Crofts, Daniel W., and Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Archibald Atkinson (1792–1872). (Dec. 22, 2021). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/atkinson-archibald-1792-1872/, accessed June 24, 2022.

"Dr Archibald Atkinson Jr." entry, Findagrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18637290/archibald-atkinson, accessed June 24, 2022.

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